In days gone by you needed to have a sizeable sum of money in your pocket if you wanted to gamble. Nobody paid a visit to their local casino with just a few bucks in their pocket; nobody dropped by their local racetrack with nothing more than $5 and change. Gambling was expensive—you needed money to last the night, and you also needed enough money to drink, eat, and pay for transport.
In the days of online casinos, that is no longer the case. These days you can signup, deposit, and play on an online casino for between $5 and $20. In this guide we’ll show you how to find Canadian casinos that accept $5 deposits, how to maximize your profit on these casinos, and more.
Why so Little?
You could be forgiven for thinking that $5 was a nothing amount that no one would ever bother with, but you’d be wrong. There is a sizeable market out there that bets between $5 and $10, and there are many different reasons for this:
- Low Expendable Income: If you don’t have a lot of money spare at the end of the month, it would be reckless to gamble a large sum. $5 is the price of a cup of coffee, an amount that likely won’t be missed, so it’s often seen as a losable amount.
- Risk: You won’t turn into a problem gambler by staking $5 very few weeks. So if you have an addictive personality, or have had a gambling issue in the past, it’s wise to keep the stakes low.
- Experience: If you’re new to the world of online casinos and don’t want to lose lots of money because of your inexperience, it’s best to start small.
- Something for Nothing: Finally, we all get a kick out of making a lot of money from a very small starting point, whether that be turning free-roll poker tournaments into 5 figure payouts, or, in this case, turning a $5 deposit into hundreds of dollars. And that is possible, as we shall discover.
How to Turn a $5 Deposit into a Fortune
Let’s get one thing clear before we continue: there is no secret to winning on an online casino. Sure, there are books and courses that claim to have the answer, but their goal is only to profit from your desperation, and they simply can’t do what they promise.
However, it is possible to gain more of an edge. There are things you can do that will give you more chance of success than the average player, and if you follow this format on a number of casinos with several $5 deposits, you could strike gold on at least one:
- Get a Bonus
The majority of online casinos offer a matched deposit bonus, but this typically only comes into play when you deposit at least $10, and even then you’re only doubling your money.
Instead, look for no deposit bonuses and 200% to 500% deposit bonuses. Where the former is concerned, you can typically get anywhere from $5 to $20 without needing to deposit. With the latter, you can turn your $5 deposit into as much as $25. These bonuses are rare, but there are always at least a few casinos out there offering them.
- Free Spins
In addition to the deposit bonus mentioned above, you should also look for free spins. These are much more common as casinos tend to give them away freely, both to new players and to loyal players. Free spins are abundant because they are cheap for the casino, limited to just $0.05 to $0.20 per spin, and overlooked by the majority of players.
If you’re limited to a budget of $5, they can make a big difference. 100 free spins could be worth as much as $20. You have to be very selective when using these free spins, so pay attention to number 5 on this list when it comes to using your free spins.
- Opt In
Once you’re in and you have your bonuses, you need to make sure that you are opted-in to every additional bonus and loyalty scheme. You also need to abide by the terms and conditions to make sure you don’t miss out, as you won’t always be naturally opted-in.
Look at the promotions page, check everything that applies to you, and give the Ts & Cs a quick run through. It sounds like a lot of effort and the Ts & Cs will be long and daunting, but you’re only looking at a small section of those Ts & Cs and the promotions are usually easy to find.
- Play the Right Games
Slots are not ideal when it comes to maximizing your return. To understand why this is the case you need to understand how online casino games work. Every game has a built-in RNG which determines how frequently the player will win. Slots have some of the lowest frequency of wins, and on average a player will lose around $3 to $6 for every $100 that they gamble.
Roulette, craps, keno and other games of chance also offer a minimal return, but games like poker and blackjack offer a big return. The odds are still in the casino’s favour, so you’ll need a little luck to tip them in your favour, but that’s where the bonus money comes in. If you’re playing with someone else’s money and losing only 1% of what you gamble, then it stands to reason that you’ll get a return on your initial investment.
- Play the Right Slots
There will be times when it benefits you to play slots, such as when you have free spins or when you’re playing micro-stakes on progressive slots. In such cases, you need to stick with games that have high payouts. These are displayed as an RTP percentage, a number that will be available on all slot machines.
The higher the number, the better, but you also need to look for something known as “variance”, which will either be “low” or “high”. A high variance slot is one that pays out infrequently, but pays big when it does; a low variance slot is one where you will win frequently, but won’t get big returns. The trick is to play the former when your session lasts for at least 100 spins, and the latter when you have only a handful of free spins or a paid session of under 50 spins. For anything else, look for mid-variance slots.